System Ignores Needs Of Runaway

Bob is a 14-year-old whose only crime was running away from an unhappy home.

But he and others like him make up a growing number of the youths locked in Florida`s detention centers, where they spend weeks and sometimes months with hard-core delinquents, officials say.

One of the problems, according to juvenile justice experts, is that there are not enough secure programs for runaways or beds for children with behavioral problems.

``I know there are a lot of kids who are in detention who shouldn`t be there because there`s no other place to put them,`` said Broward Circuit Judge John Miller, administrator of the county`s juvenile court.

The state`s 20 detention centers were never set up to handle so-called status offenders - runaways, truants and other children who get into trouble but who have not committed crimes.

State law dictates that only delinquents charged with crimes be placed in detention centers. But a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court also allows judges to detain children who have been declared dependents of the state if they have been found in contempt of court for running away from home or school.

More and more, judges are taking advantage of the ruling out of frustration with children who disobey their orders.

Between 1983 and 1984, the number of youths sent to detention for contempt of court jumped 46 percent from 1,558 to 2,271, according to the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. About 100 of the 1,300 youths now in detention centers fall into this category, officials say.

``This is a terrible misuse of our detention centers,`` said Jack Levine, executive director of the Florida Center for Children and Youth in Tallahassee.

``It provides nothing to the child. All we`re doing is telling the runaway that we`re going to put him in a concrete cell. The reason for the truancy is never addressed.``

Delinquents stay in detention centers an average of about 12 days, but status offenders often stay for months, at a daily cost to taxpayers of about $60 each.

``I`ve had cases where parents have said, `Please, take my kid and lock him up,` and then when the kid is brought to detention, they pack up and leave town,`` Miller said. ``It happens all too often.``